1. Technical Field
This invention relates to trimming of edges of lawns and gardens with herbicides rather than mechanical outters, and more particularly it relates to a hood accessory for a herbicide sprayer head for confining herbicide to a flow path of desired width and preventing inadvertent spraying of flowers, shrubs or lawn.
It has been known in the art that an adjustably mounted spray guard may be used in connection with a ground supported sprayer carriage moved manually or with a tractor along a given path. Examples of this are U.S. Pat. No. 4,524,912 to W. R. Jones, June 26, 1985 and French Pat. No. 1,566,395 to M. Oger Mar. 31, 1969. In these spray guards a planar plate is mounted on one side of the carriage assembly to produce one edge boundary for the spray pattern coming from a spray head mounted on the carriage as it is transported along a dispensing row.
Spray guards of fixed configuration have been used on hand transported manual sprayers as well, as shown in French Pat. No. 1,398,142 to Sucreries, et al. company Mar. 29, 1965 and in Finnish Pat. No. 36,997 to M. H. Hills on Apr. 13, 1968. These are specifically designed to direct a spray pattern o a geometrical area such as a circle in which a weed may be found alongside a desired plant to be protected from the herbicide. The shields are thus either placed around the plant to be protected or placed around the area occupied by the undesired weed. Clearly these guards are not adaptable to various spraying projects but are special purpose devices for a particular plant or shrub size and shape. Thus they find limited use.
Accordingly no prior art herbicide trimmer system has been available in the art that is economically feasible, versatile, and light weight for use with a hand sprayer without fatigue and able to chemically trim along a sharply defined line adjacent to a flower bed, shrubs or a sidewalk.
Furthermore, most of the prior art devices for limiting the spray patterns coming from a spray head cannot prevent wind blown herbicide from reaching and killing desirable plants.
Accordingly, it is an objective of this invention to provide an improved chemical trimming system for edge trimming along precisely defined lines of variable widths without the danger of killing desired plants when applied in the presence of wind.
Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will be found throughout the following description, drawings and claims.